


How To Feel Normal

by bogfable



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: AU, Beach City, Flashbacks, Found Family, Human AU, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Mental Health Issues, Original Character(s), Other, POV Third Person, Pink was Jasper's mother, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Suicidal Thoughts, character focused, jasper was a soldier, jasper-focused but those other characters are there too, lots of thinking about things, mentioned religion, this is like a sad indie film it probably would have sad Sufjan Stevens music on the soundtrack
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-29
Updated: 2018-09-29
Packaged: 2019-07-20 09:18:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16134272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bogfable/pseuds/bogfable
Summary: Jasper returned from the hospital nearly two months ago, from the army a month before that. She's been quietly living with Amethyst since, trying to remember how she functioned just a year before...also probably a working title. i wanted to post the first chapter but i had no idea what to call it.





	How To Feel Normal

**Author's Note:**

> I hope that you enjoy!  
> Though this -of course- has sad moments, I wanted to write something less hopeless than a lot of things I write.. and a little quieter. 
> 
> If you do enjoy please leave a comment and/or kudos! I'd appreciiate very much :^o

Jasper could fill a book with all of the self-destructive things she’d done. All those time that she could’ve died. All those times she almost did.

One of those self destructive —and near-death— things had been to join the army. She’s been deployed a year ago, far from home. She was never homesick, though, she told herself. She’d hated being home. 

Overseas she’d continued to be reckless. It was the reason she’d been yelled at until she had a panic attack in the barracks, the reason things had gone so wrong, the reason she was home now, in a house that she rarely left except to go on 6am runs. 

Being home was still painful and difficult but, since Jasper had been gone, the reasons had changed. She couldn’t bare the stares or the conversations or the noises. It was all too much. 

A soft bed was too much. So was the closet. So Jasper had began to keep all of her clothes in a suitcase on the floor. To keep things easy she also only wore the same three outfits: pyjamas, workout gear and flannel (a military jumper thrown over the top) and jeans. She switched between combat boots and trainers. Though the flannel-jumper-jeans-combats combination was rare, reserved for lonesome hikes or 4am supermarket trips. 

Jasper tried hard to feel normal. Tried to eat three meals a day. Tried to hold a conversation with Amethyst, who she considered her sister despite not actually being related by blood. Tried not to dissociate. Tried to get used to everything again. 

But it was hard, so _goddamn_ hard. And missing half an arm didn’t help. 

 

●

 

Every morning Jasper got up a little before six and wandered the still, settling house as she got ready for her run. The floor creaked, Amethyst snored in her room and the dawn chorus chattered and sung outside, interrupted only by gulls. 

Jasper ran her fingers along the bookshelf in her bedroom, all the books she’d brought with her when she moved in, before she was deployed. There were childhood favourites and epic fantasy trilogies. _Where The Wild Things Are_ and a ten book series about a fantastical civil war lead by kings with armies of knights in the tens of thousands. Jasper pulled the first book, a well-loved and dog-eared paperback, from the shelf and began to read the first page. At first she struggled to keep the book open with one hand, sighing frustratedly, but eventually found a comfortable position. She stood pensive as she read, tapping her foot against the bookshelf, thankful for the familiarity. On page three Jasper put the book down on her bedside table for later, nudged beside the dirt mugs. She slipped her feet into her trainers, tying the laces tight, and stepped out into the clear, sea-misted morning.

 

Running always helped Jasper. Always, always, always. Ever since she’d started as a young teenager. The rhythm and heavy breath held her focus. The cold air across her face washed away thoughts like the endlessly breathing tide reshaped the shore. It hurt, running so far, but it was the good kind of hurting. Heart-thumping and leg-wobbling. Her fingers shook, turned red. The veins on the back of her hand grew prominent and bulging as blood circulated her body. She counted the beats of the pulse in her ears. Counted her footfalls until she got to 300 and lost track. 

 

The beach was empty so early in the morning, the tide creeping slowly in. Jasper ran onto the hard, wet sand, trainers slapping the ground as she went. The wind whipped her hair from it’s unruly bun, plastering strands to her face. Sand and seawater freckled her shins as she splashed through lakes in the sand, none any more than an inch deep. 

Gulls flocked on long, sandy islets, dove and glided around the distant headland. They cried as they chased seabirds for their catches, not quite agile enough to catch fish so well on their own. 

Jasper came to a spit, cutting through the restless waves, and ran to the end. She stopped just before the sea. 

Inhale. Exhale. 

The sun was rising proper as Jasper caught her breath, all yellows, peaches, soft greens and clear blues. The horizon and the sky blended together where they met, hazy with mist. 

Inhale. Exhale.

 

●

 

Barely two months ago, when Jasper had first returned home, it’d taken a week of questionable rest before she could run again. She’d lay in bed, thinking and rethinking everything that had happened, longing not to be conscious yet unable to fall sleep. 

Finally, at the end of the first week —out of sheer exhaustion— she slept a full night and woke at six, disorientated but determined to run. 

And at first she did. She’d ran for ten minutes —struggling through pain and the feeling of unbalance that came with suddenly only having one full arm— before it became too much. Angry and defeated, Jasper trudged to the top of the cliffs on the far side of the shore. There she sat down, knees hugged to her chest, and sobbed. Sobbed until there was nothing left. 

Then, with her nose dripping and her eyes puffy she’d screamed seaward. Screamed and screamed and screamed until everything was out, carried away on the wind. Then she lay down, flat on her back in the grass, and stared at the fading stars as she considered the height of the cliff edges and the roaring, tearing waves at their feet.

 

●

 

Footfalls cut through the whistling wind. Jasper turned, startled. A little further inland a ghost of a woman in a shapeless dark ghost of an outfit was walking, indigo skirt rippling around her ankles. Jasper wondered if she was hallucinating. The thought both terrified and comforted her. She didn’t want to have to be hospitalised again. But she also _really_ didn’t want to talk to anyone. Besides, hallucinations probably wouldn’t stare at her arm or her scars or the violet bags beneath her eyes. They probably wouldn’t call her a hero.

The woman turned to face Jasper and called out, the wind carrying her voice clearly over the sand ribs.

“The tide’s coming in. You’re going to get stranded out there.” 

Jasper looked around, feeling like she’d just been brought back down from space. The woman was right, she was nearly surrounded by shallow saltwater. Jasper unsteadily jumped across a barely-there river, cold water splashing up her legs, and began to jog homeward. She convinced herself not to look back. Whether that woman was real or imagined, she’d rather not know. 

 


End file.
